1. Scientific Writing Jan Gustafsson IDE, Mälardalen University April 16, 2007

2. Scientific Papers ● Journals  New results  Surveys ● Workshop/Conference Papers ● Dissertations/Thesis ● Technical Reports ● Popular Science Publications

3. Purpose of Writing ● Purpose  To describe interesting knowledge in an understandable way.  To get published…  Must describe previously unpublished work (unless survey paper).

4. Important ● It is not enough to write so that the reader can understand; You should write so that the reader cannot misunderstand! ● You can learn a lot from studying other people’s work, but... never, ever, claim somebody else’s work as your own.

5. The reader should be ● intrigued within the first 5 minutes of reading; ● excited within 15 minutes; ● satisfied after 45 minutes.

6. A survey paper ● Who is going to read this? ● What is the problem area? ● Which methods did people use? ● What are the most relevant contributions? ● Are there remaining unsolved questions?

7. Contents of a paper ● Title and author(s) ● Abstract ● Introduction  Background information  Problem definition ● Method ● Results ● Summary and Conclusions ● References

8. What Does People Read? ● Abstract87% ● Introduction43% ● Middle12% ● Summary and Conclusions 55%

9. Title ● Must be informative, clear, and meaningful. ● Don’t be clever or cryptic. ● Get the attention of your readers immediately.  Bad: The effects of stress  Good: Is stress killing you?  Or: Stress: Is it killing you? ● Don’t use abbreviations in titles.

10. Abstract ● Summarizes problem, result, and uses. ● Between 100 and 250 words. ● Avoid references and acronyms. ● Try to “sell” the paper!

11. Introduction ● Explains the background/significance of the paper. ● A concise statement of the problem you are solving, and why it is useful to solve the problem ● The opening paragraph should be your best paragraph. ● The opening sentence should be your best sentence.  Bad: An important method for internal sorting is quicksort.  Good: Quicksort is an important method for internal sorting, because … ● Ended by a a summary of the organization of the paper.

12. Method ● Tests, procedures, methods, experiments, processes, equipment, data structures, algorithms, etc. ● Proofs for algorithms  Termination  Correctness (soundness, completeness)  etc. ● Don’t describe dead ends.

13. Results ● (Convincing) examples ● Benchmarks ● Time/space complexity.

14. Summary and Conclusions ● Interpretation of the results: pros & cons ● Limitations ● Suggestions for Future Work ● Rejected alternatives

15. References ● Make sure all references are referenced ● Some common reference formats are  Turing stated the following theorem [12] …  as shown by Ullman [Ull87]. ● What goes in the reference depends on the type of of publication.  Books: author, title, publisher, ISBN, year.  Journal: author, title, journal, volume, month, pages.  Report: author, title, source, year.

16. References [DW88] Saumya K. Debray and David S. Warren. Automatic Mode Inference for Logic Programs. The Journal of Logic Programming, 5:207-229, 1988. [Llo84] J.W. Lloyd. Foundations of Logic Programming. Springer-Verlag, 1984. [War83] D.H.D. Warren. An Abstract Prolog Instruction Set. Technical Report Tech. Note 309, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, 1983.

17. References to web pages ● To be used sparingly… ● Be critical, do not use personal web pages ● Write the date in the reference ● Save a copy of the page for later retrieval Wikipedia? ● OK to use, but not more than half of the references ● Try to find the original sources

18. Facts and Opinions ● As for facts, differentiate  Own results  Other's results ● As for opinions, differentiate  Own opinions  Other's opinions

19. Rules ● If you write text based on own experience or knowledge  Argue clearly or prove it ● If you write text based on reading  Refer clearly to the sources ● If you borrow sentences make it clear with  Quotation marks  and References

20. The Writing Process ● Understand what you want to achieve ● Write with the reader in mind ● The writing process: 1. Write 2. Read what you have written 3. Discuss - think - make notes ● Iterate 1 - 3 ● Let the text rest for a couple of days sometimes

21. Writing Style ● Neutral and objective  Avoid first person reference, e.g. “I will show”  Prefer “It will be shown” or possibly “We will see” ● Aim at:  Precision  Concentration  Organization  Understandable language

22. Remember ● The writing process is a creative process ● Most important is the content ● Also, style (linguistic and typographic) is important

23. Simple Rules ● Always write so that every  Report/Article/Thesis  Section  Paragraph ● can be summarized in a couple of sentences ● The main purpose of every part of the text should be obvious

24. Report Requirements ● Written in LaTex ● Process all comments from the opponents ● No page numbering in the final report ● Submit as  PDF-file  TEX-source and images ● Present the report using PowerPoint or similar